


The Price of Progress

by stefrobrts



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Case Fic, Gen, Season/Series 08, Season/Series 08 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-06
Updated: 2016-04-26
Packaged: 2018-04-30 05:28:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 21,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5152034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stefrobrts/pseuds/stefrobrts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Agents Scully and Doggett are sent to assist a sheriff's office in rural Washington State when researchers from a high-security government facility start turning up dead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place in season 8 between 'This is Not Happening' and 'deadalive'. I really enjoyed writing this one, and it has been finessed over a very long period of time. I hope you enjoy reading it.

\------------- Prologue  
  
Two scientists looked out the window of their laboratory, out past the manicured lawns that were intended to add an air of informality to the facility, past the chain-link and razor wire which worked to counteract that sense of informality, to the young men and women who sat camped around a bonfire on the other side of the fence, just outside the reach of the compound's guards.  
  
"Look at them sitting out there. Wasting their lives, thinking they can change something by sitting on their asses and singing Kum-bi-ya." James, an older man with a thick beard flecked with gray, turned away and returned to his stool in front of a large machine which dominated the corner of the small lab and peered through the binocular eyepieces.  
  
"I don't know," the younger man tapped his knuckle on the glass and stared out into the darkness. The people below were visible within the orange glow of the fire, but only existed as shadows and silhouettes outside it. "I think they may have a point, James."  
  
"What's the matter, Gary? Are the hippies starting to get to you?" He chuckled, but it was a dry, angry sound that came from deep in his throat. "Just shut up and do your work. You'll never get it this good again."  
  
"Look, it doesn't matter how 'good' we get it here. You've seen what's going on here." Gary leaned on the counter, whispering, and shooting glances behind him at where he knew the surveillance camera was mounted in the wall, hidden behind a nondescript ventilation grill. He turned back to the older man and hissed, "we're supposed to be doing this to help people, but not like this. Those kids out there might be a little idealistic, but they have a point."  
  
James winced and took a deep breath before he spoke, so his words came out cooler than he looked. "Gary, you’ve never worked outside of a government funded research facility, you don’t even realize what it's like outside. You could be the best in your field, and still waste your life rotting away in some college, playing teacher to bide your time for the little bit of grant money that gets thrown your way once in a while." He tapped on the counter with a thin, bony finger and then shook it in Gary's face as he continued. "But this is it, this is as good as it gets. You have unlimited resources, no one looking over your shoulder. All you have to do is pure research, do the best you can, and look where it's gotten us. Do you know how long it would have taken to come up with those results on the outside?"  
  
"It doesn't matter." Gary pounded his fists on the counter top. "It's ill-gotten gain. These people we're working for, they think they can do anything they want. We'll all be in trouble if any of this gets out. We could be prosecuted."  
  
"Look, I don't want to hear it. These advances we're making will change the world, and they couldn't happen anywhere else. We don't have to answer to anyone on the outside. Do you know how freeing that is?" He shook his head. "Of course you don't. You haven't been anywhere but here. Leave, and you'll find out what it's like in the real world. It would take decades to do what we've done in the last few years."  
  
"That's just it, I don't think we can leave. Pete and I talked about it. I think he was going to quit. Then he was murdered. You know what I heard?"  
  
"We've all heard the rumors, Gary. I'm sure that's not true."  
  
"I don't know, but someone peeled him like a banana is what I heard. Someone wanted him stopped. What do you think happened to Jake, or Robert?"  
  
James sighed and looked into the machine again. He grabbed one of the joystick-like hand controls to manipulate the micro-tools within the machine, but after a moment he pulled his hand away, shaking it vigorously. "Look, you've got my hands shaking. I can't concentrate with you here. Go home."  
  
"Fine, fine. I'll leave. But this isn't over. Something's got to change around here."  Gary turned and left the lab, slamming the door behind him.  
  
James sat back and looked around the room at the animals resting in the darkened half of the laboratory. He walked over to one of the cages and looked in. The small orange cat inside was curled up in a typical cat-like ball, sleeping. He rattled the latch on the cage.  
  
"Hey, Tuck, how are you doin', buddy?"  
  
The animal looked up, startled. Looking at him, eye to eye, was a cat with human eyes grafted in place of it's own. He moved to one side and watched the cat's oversized baby blues follow him. He would never get over the shock of seeing those eyes, but another part of him wanted to rejoice at the sight of his own invention, mechanical but almost completely realistic, functional human eyes. As the cat blinked he heard a slight whir as the pupils adjusted to the changing light conditions.  
  
The eyes were spectacular. Something that would someday put his name in the encyclopedia. He was even secretly hoping for a Nobel prize in medicine. The Crawford Eye, they would call it. Possibly the only thing holding him back was the research facility he was working at. Top secret, hosted by some long arm of the government, it was controversial for it's treatment of animal subjects, and even he couldn't deny that he had seen some things done here that didn't sit well with him. However, it had been a good place to work. The money flowed freely and the researchers were given leeway to try things out without the repercussions failed experiments often had on normal grants. They even had access to special testing situations that simply wouldn't be available on the outside. As a result, the men in this facility had created bio-mechanical replacements for many body parts that other scientists were still struggling over transplants for. Soon there would be readily available artificial organs and no one would die for lack of a donor kidney again, no one would have to rely on a dog to guide them down a busy street. However, it was up to the people who wrote the checks to decide when they would be allowed to begin publishing their results. Until then, he could only dream of that day when they would hang the Nobel prize around his neck. Then it would all be worthwhile, the end justifying the means.  
  
************  
  
In the parking lot a guard strode by, semi-automatic rifle slung over his shoulder as he patrolled the facility covered in a camo-colored poncho to keep off the rain. "Good evening, Dr Crawford," he said with a short nod. The parking lot lights glistened off his wet poncho and reflected off the puddles on the ground.  
  
Crawford nodded and dug into his pockets for the keys to his government issue sedan, which was nearly the last one in the lot. He unlocked the door and got in. These soldiers were like robots, no sense of humor, no personality. The only good thing about them was the kept the public out of their hair and prevented the animal rights activists outside the gate from rushing in and disrupting their work. As he approached the gate, he looked at the people on the far side of it, huddled around their bonfire on private property adjacent to the facility property. The army couldn't touch them, and they couldn't touch the facility grounds. It was a standoff.  
  
Outside the fence the people began standing up at the sight of his car's headlights. He could see them gathering their signs, turning on flashlights and lanterns. They approached the line and stood waving and shaking signs, swinging their flashlights around them. The gate slowly slid open to permit him to leave, and he put the pedal down, racing down the bumpy gravel road as fast as the car would accelerate. It was a game they played every night, and it seemed to be escalating lately. As winter set in, their desperation was starting to set in as well, and it was beginning to show in their actions.  
  
As he approached the protesters they yelled and hurled clods of dirt at his car. Most of them missed but a few struck the sides of it with a bang. It was unsettling, but harmless. He gunned the motor and swerved the car in their direction; just enough to make a few of them jump out of the way, and then sped past them and hurried to the highway. There he quickly pulled out on to the deserted road and headed home, his windshield wipers pumping furiously to clear the rain from the glass. He was on the road for five minutes before he relaxed and felt his racing pulse begin to slow down again. After a few more minutes he pulled into the driveway of his house.  
  
"What the hell?" He peered through the rain-coated glass, trying to see between the droplets. The kids had left their bikes strewn about the garage, right inside the door so there was no way for him to pull in. He strained to look up at the house, and saw all the lights on the second floor were already out. They were used to him coming home late, so everyone had gone to bed hours before. He put the transmission into park and set the emergency brake, then got out to move the bikes, leaving the car door open. Working quickly, he was still getting wet from the blowing rain as he picked up each of the three bikes and moved them off to the side of the garage. As he placed the last one out of his way he turned back to the car, and stopped in his tracks.  
  
A shape stood next to the car, silhouetted by the glare from the streetlight as the sheets of rain came down. It was large, upright, like a man, but there was something else. He froze. The figure reached into the car and turned off the headlights.  
  
"Who's there?" He said, trying to hide the shake from his voice. The garage was lit only by the dim yellow light activated by the garage door opener. It flickered out as it's timer expired. Crawford turned and ran for the door which led into the house. The figure next to the car moved even faster, catching him before he could get to the safety of his home. They struggled for an instant, and the assailant quickly overpowered him, smacking him hard across the face and then grabbing him by the throat, crushing his larynx and silencing his scream. The beast tossed him almost effortlessly against the wall which he struck flailing, knocking garden tools and hoses to the ground where he landed on them in a heap.  
  
"Don't you remember?" The voice was rough, mechanical. It seemed to come from all around him. Crawford pawed at the debris on the floor around him, trying to get a grip to pull himself up, but the best he could do was to flip over onto his hands and knees and start crawling. His hand found a rake and he grabbed it, swinging it up behind him as he flipped back over, putting all his weight into it.  
  
The attacker caught it, stopping it's motion with one hand.  
  
"Obviously you don't remember if you think that's a reasonable defense." It tore the tool out of his hands and snapped the wooden handle before flinging it away, sending it skittering out into the driveway.  
  
"I didn't do anything," Crawford said, his voice guttural, almost inaudible, "I just observed."  
  
"Observed. That's such a scientific way to put it."  
  
Crawford scrambled away, clawing at the ground with his hands, and made it out to the driveway before the figure caught up with him again. This time it swung two hard blows to his head, the first one knocking him down on his face, the second pounding his face against the paved drive, cracking bones. He felt himself being flipped over, and through the blood that was running in thick rivulets down his forehead and into his eyes he could just make out the big, deformed face of his attacker. There was a flash and he realized the figure had produced a large serrated hunting knife, and held it in front of his face.  
  
"You've made your last observation."  
  
  
  



	2. Chapter 2

"Honey, I have never pretended to understand your relationship with Fox, but I can tell this is a real turning point for you. I think maybe this would be a good time for you to consider leaving."

Dana Scully looked at her mother, finding the same caring yet half-afraid look she had become accustomed to seeing on her. She was always afraid of saying the wrong thing, of driving her only remaining daughter away, or maybe she was just afraid of the things she thought she knew, the danger her daughter lived with every day as an agent of the government. Dana looked around the room, her own living room, looking at everything as if she was seeing it for the first time. Everything was different now, everything seemed to be new and strange. "Leaving?" She echoed her mother's word back as a question.

"Leaving the FBI, Dana. Before the baby comes." Margaret Scully leaned over and took her daughter's hand with both of hers, holding it tight. "Find something less hazardous. The baby is going to be counting on you to be around for a long time."

She rubbed a hand over her now swollen abdomen and thought about the little life she carried inside, thought about how enthusiastic Mulder had been about this very prospect, how she had almost had a glimpse of a normal, happy life ahead for them as something resembling a family. Now there was just a hollow emptiness. "I can't leave yet, Mom. Our work isn't finished here. There are a lot of questions that haven't been answered."

"Sometimes there are no answers, Dana. Fox is gone. You have to look out for yourself now. Put yourself and your baby first."

"Go Scully." She heard that familiar voice, and looked up to see Mulder, standing in the corner of the room, half-hidden in the shadows. "Get as far away from me as you can."

She jerked awake, her eyes open suddenly, dazzled by the light inside the airplane cabin. Momentarily confused, she looked around until her eyes settled on the familiar form two seats away, looking out the window. He turned towards her and she involuntarily made a little sound of surprise as reality sunk in.

"Agent Scully, you ok?" Agent Doggett looked at her with slight concern, but mostly his question was just being polite. He was always the gentleman. To her great disappointment though, he wasn't Mulder. She nodded an embarrassed acknowledgement, brushed back a lock of red hair that had fallen forward into her face, and settled back into her seat. He returned to gazing out the airplane window.

Her mother had said all that less than a week before, the afternoon after Mulder's funeral, as they sat together on the couch at her apartment. Everything had happened just like in her dream, except there was no Mulder anymore, only his ghost in her head. Every word he had ever said suddenly took on new meaning. Everything she could remember, and the things she lay awake at night trying to remember. Little details which she had let slip because they didn't seem important at the time, now they all served as benchmarks, souvenirs of a life cut short. She wanted to remember everything. She thought about how he looked in the morning when she came into work and found him in their office, already stoked on coffee, sleeves rolled up, slide projector warmed up and ready to go. How she had tired of his enthusiasm over the stupidest little things, now she realized she would give anything to have the chance to listen to him pontificating about the significance of some ridiculous tabloid article one more time. In her memory, instead of rolling her eyes and skeptically dismissing him, she would look at him, watch the laugh-lines that formed around his eyes as he squinted at her through that cocky smile while he unraveled some yarn that no one in their right mind would accept, the way his eyes brightened as he talked about impossible things, the way he looked at her to see if she was as excited as he was. She never was. Why not, she thought. Why hadn't she given him that? So much time had been wasted. It had always been part of the game, she had her part to play. How could she have known there wasn't always going to be time for games? If she could do it again, things would be different, she could see that now.

But of course, she couldn't do it again. Her chance had come and gone. There had been times when Mulder had seemed like a curse, but now she realized he had been a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that she hadn't taken full advantage of. Now her life would forever be divided into a third age. There was her life before Mulder, her life with Mulder, and now, life without him. Her life with him would from now on be a memory, relived only in her dreams and quiet moments when she allowed herself the luxury of dwelling on their time together.

The plane jerked a little in the air, and the engines revved up just a notch. She felt the pull against inertia as the pilot compensated for and steered around the turbulence. Passengers around her shifted in their seats and mumbled to their companions. Magazines rustled as people who had been jostled awake looked for something to take their mind off the flight. Life went on around her, undaunted by her grief.


	3. Chapter 3

Agent Doggett wove through the small but vocal crowd on the street, ducked under the yellow crime scene tape and paused on the other side, holding it up so his partner could follow him through. He stopped for a moment and looked up at the house, a two and a half story behemoth that dominated its two acre lot, towering over the single story ranch homes and simple trailers that filled out the neighborhood.

"Damn, that's a big house." He shook his head and continued to the triple garage, where a car was parked in front of an open garage door, the driver's side door hanging open. On the other side of the car a plastic tarp covered a large portion of the concrete driveway. A state police officer intercepted before he could get too close, and he had his badge out and ready for them. The officer, a young man with his head shaved completely smooth glanced over the badge and held out a hand in greeting.

"I'm Sheriff Brett, Washington State Patrol. We're glad to see you two here. We've handled this case so far, but third time's the charm."

"Third time?" Agent Scully gestured towards the tarp. "This man is the third victim?"

"Yes, ma’am. When we requested help from the FBI there were only two. This guy turned up this morning. We've been trying to keep it out of the press, but this one," he waved a hand toward the crowd on the sidewalk, "was a little too public to keep quiet." He led them to the tarp and carefully peeled one corner back so they could see the face of the victim. Although there may have been other wounds, the only thing Doggett could make out was that there had been a great deal of very bloody facial damage.

"Christ, he looks like hamburger." Doggett grimaced.

"Murderer! He got what he deserved! Murderer!" A young woman on the street screamed and leaned over the crime scene barrier. One of Brett's officers grabbed her and pushed her back off the barrier, then stood between them and the scene, his arms crossed. The people backed down, but just barely. Doggett was distracted as a press van pulled up to the sidewalk, causing a migration as the young activists rushed over to it.

"Has the scene been documented?" Doggett heard Scully ask.

"Yeah, we found him like this very early this morning. We had our crime scene team out here all morning. They decided to leave the body here for you to look at, since you were already on your way. As soon as you're ready we can have it moved to the county morgue."

"Who found the body?" Doggett asked.

"The wife." Brett gestured towards the house. "She said she woke up about 1am, heard a car running in the driveway and got up to see what was going on."

"She didn't see anything else?" Agent Doggett pulled the tarp back further to get a better look at the body, to judge it's relationship to the car. He glanced around and noticed the mess in the garage, and was already plotting the route the man must have taken to get to where his body lay now. From the looks of the garage, it had been a violent trip. A rake lay further out in the driveway, snapped in two.

"No, he was already laying here when she came down. She called 911 and they sent us. There's no police here, so they contract with the state. Frankly though, we're spread pretty thin out here in the country anyway, our nearest station is about an hour away. That's why we thought we could use some help investigating these killings."

"Well," Doggett glanced at his partner to see if she was going to offer any suggestions, but her eyes were still on the corpse. "I think we can move the body to the county morgue now. I'll look over the information you've gathered so far and see what we can piece together."

"I have copies of the other case reports for you in my car. There's another thing, Agents. We thought FBI might be more useful because the victims all have one thing in common. They're all scientists at a government research facility not far from here. It's real top secret stuff, you need high security clearance even to get through the gate. Police can't get any answers from them. We thought maybe you would have the pull to get in there and find out what's going on."

"We'll see what we can do. I'm going to have a look around the house first."

"You do that," Scully spoke up, "I'll ride into town with the EMTs and see if I can assist at the exam." He nodded and walked up to the house. The inside was as elaborate as the outside. The house looked like a woman lived there, but there was no sign of anything he would have considered masculine. It was a sure sign the doctor didn't spend much time at home. A glance around the living area led him to a large wood-paneled den.

Inside was a heavy cherry wood desk, piled high with magazines and folders stuffed with clipped articles. Doggett walked around the desk, glancing at the magazines. They were all medical journals. Some were specialized, Ophthalmology, Optics, and Journal of Conditions and Diseases of the Eye. Looking at the walls behind the desk, he realized there were several framed articles, dated as many as ten years prior, which the victim had written. Apparently he had discovered a previously unknown construction of the eye, which had brought him some celebrity in his circle.

"So I guess we know what you might have been researching." Doggett spoke to himself. He glanced out the window and saw the driveway where the EMTs had just finished bagging the body and stowing it in the ambulance. As he watched one of the men gave Scully a hand stepping up into the back of the vehicle.

Turning back to the desk he flipped open a folder which contained clippings. Here things were getting interesting. He pulled out his notepad and wrote down some of the terms. Retinal Component Chips, Bio-mechanical corneal implants. He glanced over the articles but quickly realized they were very technical and over his head. He got the gist of it though. It was all about replacing human organs with mechanical ones, the stuff science-fiction dreams were made of.


	4. Chapter 4

"Normally we probably wouldn't get to this for a few days." Stan Fiske, the county coroner finished washing his hands and dried them off thoroughly before pulling on a pair of latex gloves. "Having all three of these bodies found in such a short time has really been a tax on our small facility." He was at least ten years older than Scully, and had the air of an instructor about him. Some of it came from his confidence and years of experience, but part of it was the respect he commanded through sheer size. He was nearly seven feet tall, and built heavy. Scully shrugged on a borrowed lab coat in preparation for the exam.

"Well, I appreciate you moving it up the schedule." She said, pulling on rubber gloves and checking the knot on her coat. She followed Fiske into the autopsy bay, where he moved quickly around the room, following what were no doubt practiced routine for him, preparing specimen containers and loading a new cassette into the voice recorder for the microphone that hung over the table. She almost shivered in the cold of the sterile room, but suppressed the urge. Still, she couldn't help notice the vapors of her breath that flowed out of both nostrils with each exhale.

"There's no need for you to be present for the exam. I can just bring you results if you'd rather not be in the room." He turned as his assistants burst into the room, pushing the metal doors open by shoving the gurney through ahead of them. The body bag lay on the metal table. The two young men lifted the black rubber bag onto the exam table and one hurried away, taking the gurney with him. The other busied himself by setting up the coroner's instruments onto a small metal table next to the main table.

"I don't mind assisting you. I told you I am a forensic pathologist. I've done hundreds of autopsies myself." She answered him, trying not to sound defensive. She thought this had already been made clear to him.

"I understand that, but seeing your condition," he waved a hand at her, indicating her pregnancy. She felt a flash of embarrassment, followed immediately by indignance. "Some pregnant women have a problem with nausea, especially in the presence of strong odors."

"I'm fine," she answered sharply.

"I'm not questioning your abilities, just pointing out..." He shrugged and turned back to the table. "Alright, John, go ahead and open it up."

The assistant unzipped the body bag carefully, folding the bag back so the fluid inside drained down onto the table and into the gutters down each side where they passed through paper filters to collect solids for evidence before the liquids continued down into the drain. The stench was just beginning to radiate from the body, but the cool of the room helped to keep it at bay.

Once the bag was open Fiske moved in for a closer look. Scully hung close by as he carefully worked the corpse out of the bag and began undressing the body. He carefully removed the clothes, which his assistant placed in paper evidence bags. The coroner moved the limbs and looked for large obvious wounds. Other than some minor scratches and bruises there was nothing except the head wounds. Finally he stepped back.

"Start taking photos, John. Then we'll vacuum the body for hair and fibers, collect what's under the fingernails, and hose off the blood from the head so we can get a better look at the damage there." He turned his back to the table and opened the file on the counter top, where he scribbled some notes.

Scully stood, watching. There was something very wrong, and she knew it, but she didn't want to admit it yet. She could control it, she could control herself, she repeated over and over in her head. Yet still she felt the pressure rising up in her throat, the sour taste in the back of her mouth. The stench of death wafted over her, pushed towards her in the stale autopsy bay as the assistant moved around her side of the table to get a better angle on the facial wounds. It smelled of vomit and feces, and the inevitable decomposition of the abdominal bacteria, smells she was all too familiar with, but today they turned her stomach in ways she had never experienced since her first days in cadaver lab in college. She didn't want to breathe through her mouth, didn't trust herself to risk unlocking her jaw, and she couldn't take one more breath of that smell through her nose. Instead she held her breath and tried to suppress the queasiness. As if a wave were passing over her, her eyes fluttered shut involuntarily and she rocked back on her heels.

"Whoa there," suddenly Fiske had her by the arm and was dragging her fast to the other side of the room. "I've seen that look before." Before she could protest she saw the sink he was leading her towards and the motion pushed her over the edge. She promptly bent over the basin and lost her airplane breakfast. She heaved twice more until there was nothing else to come up, and then, wiping the tears from her eyes with the back of her hand, she rested her elbows on the edge of the counter and spat into the sink again before turning the water on and washing it all away.  Fiske patted her solidly on the back and walked away. "Why don't you let me send you the report," she heard him say. She caught a handful of water from the faucet and scooped it into her mouth, rinsed and spat it out into the drain. Suddenly his offer didn't seem like such a bad idea.


	5. Chapter 5

Agent Doggett stood inside the guard shack at the research facility, armed guards on either side of him. Outside the shack a guard with a mirror on a pole carefully examined the underside of the rental car he had arrived in.

"Look, call that number. They will confirm that I have high security clearance, that should be more than enough to get me in to at least talk to the CO here." He tapped on his card on the counter again. The guard behind the counter looked at it skeptically. He held a phone to his ear, and was waiting for a response on the other end. After what seemed like an eternity he finally hung up.

"You have clearance to talk to Colonel Hawk. He will be out here to talk to you shortly. You are not to proceed through the gate. Back your car up and park in the outer lot, and he'll meet with you there." The men stepped aside and cleared the way for Doggett to exit through the door. Outside the man with the mirror had disappeared. Doggett reversed the car into a spot in the gravel lot outside the fence. He stepped out of the car, found a comfortable spot to lean against the fender and waited.

The drive into the facility had been calm, because only a few animal rights protesters remained camped out along the road leading to the facility gate. They shouted and waved signs, but it was really a half-hearted effort. He could tell they had sent their best people into town to talk to the press about the latest killing. Even now he could see the few remaining people had returned to sitting under a tarp they had strung up next to the fire, warming their hands against the cool morning air.

Ten minutes later a jeep drove up to the gate from the inner compound, which was at least one large grey building, partially hidden away in the distance behind trees. The vehicle parked and a big man got out and walked into the guard shack. Doggett saw the guards point in his direction, and the man walked over to him, carrying a manila folder and wearing a sidearm.

"Colonel Hawk." The big man introduced himself, holding out a hand.

"Agent Doggett, FBI." Doggett shook his hand. "I assume you've heard about Dr Crawford?"

"Yes, we got a call from the police this morning." His statement was matter of fact, and if he was disturbed by this development he wasn't letting on.

"Can you tell me what he was working on here?" Dogget asked.

"No, I am not permitted to discuss anything that goes on at the facility."

"From items in his home, I've deduced that he was a specialist in the study of the human eye."

"I can neither confirm nor deny that." Hawks replied.

"I understand there were two other scientists who worked at your facility who died under suspicious circumstances." Doggett had stopped before coming to the facility to give the reports Brett had given him a quick once over. Three nights ago Jake Johnson had been found on the side of the highway with a gaping hole in his chest, his heart cut out. Two nights ago Peter Sloan had been found in his home, skinned.

"Unfortunately, yes, this is the third man we've lost. Due to security concerns, I cannot permit you onto the grounds to investigate." He stood back, his arms crossed.

"I told your guard to call the FBI and confirm my security status."

"Agent Doggett," Hawks said, shaking his head, "I don't care what your security status is, it's not good enough to get you in here."

"Well, can you tell me anything? How long have these men worked here? Did they work together? Did they have any enemies? Is there any reason all three of them should be on someone's hit list?"

"There's only one thing I can tell you, Agent, and that's that these animal rights activists are behind it." He pointed out towards the road. "Look at them, bunch of bleeding hearts, all they care about is the animals. They don't give a crap about human life."

"What brought them here?" Doggett asked.

Hawk handed him a manila folder. "We use animals in our research here, and because of the high security level, we aren't under ASPCA supervision. We've been getting threat letters from these nuts for years. I'm thinking maybe one of them has decided to shut down our facility at the source, by killing our scientists."

"What have they been doing here?"

"They camp out, throw stuff at the cars coming in and out. Just make a nuisance of themselves mostly. I've had words with a couple of them though, and they're pretty aggressive one on one. I'd be worried if any of my scientists ran into them away from the protection of the facility, and I think that is what happened."

Doggett opened the folder and paged through it. It contained a number of threat letters, mostly handwritten, some typed. He glanced over a couple of them, and closed the folder again.

"How long has this been going on?"

"Those letters are about two years worth. The activists have maintained a presence here along the road for the last three months or so. Before that we only had the occasional run in with them."

"Well, I can certainly look into this. If it is someone targeting your people, do you have any plans for protecting the remaining personnel who live in town?"

"We've offered everyone quarters on the facility grounds, but it's purely voluntary. There are still a few researchers who live in town."

"Can you give me their names?"

"No. That is classified."

"You know, I can get some of this information through the FBI."

"You can, but I am not allowed to give it to you."

"Even if it could save the lives of some of your scientists?"

"Not even then." Hawks replied, with not the slightest hint of regret. He was being a good soldier, doing exactly what he was told.

Doggett nodded. "Thank you Colonel Hawk, you've been a wealth of information."

"We all have a job to do, Agent Doggett," Hawk answered.

Hawk turned back to the gate and reentered the facility. Doggett tossed the folders into the car and slammed the car door. He looked over at the protesters. A few more had arrived, and were joining the others camped around the smoldering fire. There were no more than ten all together. It was time to have a talk.

At the end of the gravel driveway he climbed a small embankment, covered with slippery yellow field grass which had fallen over itself, weighed down by the previous nights rain. He could see some of the activists standing up and walking over to meet him. They stopped obediently at the invisible line that separated private property from the facility.

"Agent Doggett, FBI," he held his badge up for them to see. "I'd like to ask you a few questions." The women hung back while a few bold young men stepped forward to squint at the badge skeptically.

"What do you want?" One of them asked, his voice defiant.

"I'd like to know what you guys know about this facility." He answered, trying to appear authoritative, but non-threatening. He wasn't sure which approach would get him the answers he wanted, but he knew that with ten to one odds he didn't want to piss them off either.

"Like that they torture and kill animals in there? We know that." One young man, with wild red hair that was matted down like he hadn't bathed in days, shouted at him.

"Yeah, animals come in but they don't come out. They get them by the truckload," a girl, bundled up in a parka but wearing shorts, pointed at the facility's tower which let out a thin stream of black smoke. "That's where they come out."

"And one of our people never came out either," another man piped up. Doggett looked around at the small crowd. They were angry, tired, dirty. They were fighting for what they thought was right, and they were all young and had a lot to prove. It seemed like a very dangerous combination.

"Have any of you actually spoken to any of the researchers here?" Doggett asked.

"Yes, some of them. But most of them don't want to hear what we have to say."

"They close their eyes to it, won't even look at us when they drive in and out."

"You can see the guilt in their eyes," Parka-girl piped up.

"Do you know anything about the man who was killed last night?" He asked, afraid to hear the answer.

"Bastard," Red-head yelled.

"Murderer!" Another voice shouted from the back.

"I know what he did," Parka-girl said, her voice lilting. "He carved their eyes out. I saw it in a dream." She nodded gravely.

"Whoever killed him was serving justice," a bearded man, probably the oldest in the group spoke up, "You should be looking to arrest the people in that facility. They don't obey any laws but their own. That's where justice needs to be served."

"I'm here to investigate the murders, not to investigate the facility," Doggett began. His statement was immediately greeted by a groan from the crowd.

"Figures, you're just looking to do the man's work. Keeping the status quo," Bearded-man said. "You couldn't care less about the real injustices going on," He waved a hand at the FBI man and turned to walk away. "People like you are just part of the machine."

"Down with the machine!" Doggett didn't see it coming, but Red-head had disappeared off to one side, and returned with something in his hand. He dashed in from almost behind Doggett as he turned to talk to Bearded-man, and seeing the attack coming, he turned just in time to get hit square in the chest by something hard enough to knock him back a step, but not knock him over. It only took a split second for him to react, and in two quick steps he pounced on Red-head before he could get away, and they both toppled over onto the muddy grass. Doggett flipped him over onto his stomach and pulled out his handcuffs. As he slipped them on the young man and ratcheted them closed he felt a slickness on his own hands. He dropped the younger man, leaving him face down the ground and looked down at his shirt, which was stained crimson, soaked in blood.


	6. Chapter 6

The coroner's office had a small waiting area which doubled as a break room for the employees. There were a few tables and a coffee maker on the counter in the small, white tiled room. Dr Fiske's secretary led Scully there, and left her with the autopsy files for the previous victims. "If you need anything else, I'm right around the corner," she said, with compassion in her voice. Scully nodded and mumbled a short thank you as the older woman left the room, feeling completely humiliated. She hadn't ever vomited at an autopsy, not in school, not on the job, never. Having done so now, at a time when she was trying to pick up and get on with her life was beyond embarrassing, it was a complete failure. Hoping to put it out of her mind, she flipped open the first coroner's report.

Jake Johnson, a 45 year old black male, was killed through evisceration and blood loss. He had had a hole cut in his chest and his heart torn out, in addition to suffering other crushing blunt-force wounds. She read over the initial report, and flipped the page to see the first photo of the dead man's corpse on the exam table. The body showed extensive trauma, particularly the large hole in the chest, where the ribs had been broken or torn away to make access to the heart. The victim's face was also heavily damaged on the same side, with the cheekbone crushed and pressed upward into the cranial cavity. The whole face had the appearance of having melted upward on that side, the skin loose instead of being drawn taught over the bones. She drew her hand over her mouth and held it there, closed her eyes and flipped the folder closed, shoving it away in one motion.

Maybe it wasn't the smell of death, maybe it was just the thought of it. She could pretend it was just a byproduct of her pregnancy, an over-sensitivity to stimuli, but in the back of her mind she knew it wasn't true. She had seen death from arms length her whole life. Even her father and her sister, as hard as their loss had been to take, she had been able to handle the grief and go on with her duties. Her own bout with cancer had given her time to consider her own mortality, but this was somehow worse. Death had pushed all that aside and struck at her in the most unimaginable, most cruel way possible. Just when she thought she was beginning to understand the subtle meanings behind life, when she had finally broke down the walls and allowed herself to feel the joy of love and intimacy, and hope of creating a new life, someone had yanked the rug out from under her, leaving her falling like Alice, down a hole that seemed to drop forever.

She shook it off and pulled the other folder towards her. Peter Sloan was almost 50, and had died a death that would have brought Mulder running. In this case the cause of death was not nearly as interesting as the treatment of the corpse after death. Sloan had been beaten to death and then skinned, his body left hanging from a rafter in his garage.

She flipped the page to the exam table photos. These, although considerably more gruesome, were almost easier to take because the condition of the body was so far removed from what a normal human looked like, it was like looking at an animal carcass or an anatomy text illustration. It had been a lot of work, and not for the weak, let alone the weak-stomached. They were definitely looking for a big, strong, assailant, almost certainly a man. Someone who hunted possibly, judging from the way the skin had been removed. The coroner had found evidence that a large serrated knife had been used. It could have been a hunting knife, or a military issue combat knife. She closed the folder and realized she was shaking. It was just anxiety, she told herself, scolding. It was nothing she couldn't deal with.

"Agent Scully?" A voice interrupted her internal tirade, and she looked up to see Sheriff Brett. A tall, muscular young man, his broad shoulders nearly filled the doorway, and he held his hat in one hand dangling by his side. "The secretary said I could find you here. I think you'd better come with me. Agent Doggett's had some kind of run in with the animal activists at the facility site. We're supposed to meet him at the hospital."

 

**************

Scully and Brett arrived at the county hospital to find the emergency room enveloped in chaos. Four of Brett's men had arrived separately, two to take Doggett's attacker into custody, and two more who the hospital had requested to take control of the activists who had followed them, setting up a sit-in in the emergency room waiting area, calling for the freedom of their imprisoned comrade. Scully expertly avoided the mess and ducked down the hallway, leaving Brett to handle it while she found her partner.

Doggett had only called in with the barest details, and she still wasn't sure what to expect when she spotted him coming out of an exam room. For a second she had to reconcile the massive amount of blood that covered his clothes with the fact that he was standing at all.

"Agent Doggett, are you alright?" She grabbed at his jacket and pulled it back, examining him quickly. "What happened?" His shirt was matted down with a sticky coat of congealed blood, and it had splattered from his face to his knees. Below the knees he was coated in a thick layer of mud.

"Pig blood," he said, the annoyance clear in his voice. "The little punk threw a balloon full of pig blood on me." He held his jacket open for her to get a better look. "The Doctor's looking him over now. I twisted his arm a little hard when I grabbed him, but he's ok."

"Who is it?" She asked, stepping back as he pulled off his stained jacket and handed it to her.

"His name's Bill Suitor, he's just a kid, sixteen or so. He's got a heck of a story for us." He continued as he unbuttoned his shirt. When he discovered his undershirt was soaked through as well he grimaced, holding his hands clear as he tried to decide what to do next.

"What's his story?" She asked.  
   
"He says the facility is holding his father hostage." He scratched at the front of his shirt. "I've got to go change, this stuff is starting to dry. Why don't you go talk to him?"

"Sure, " she handed his jacket back to him. "Ask the nurse at the front and she'll tell you where you can get cleaned up and changed." He nodded and began to walk away when they both spotted a woman running down the corridor in their direction.

"Agent Doggett? Are you Agent Doggett?" The woman stopped short, covering her mouth with her hand in shock. "Oh my god, are you ok?"

"Yes, and you are?" His tone indicated that he had begun to run out of patience with the whole incident.

"That's my son, Bill Jr. They said he attacked you, but.." she stammered, "you're not hurt?"

"No, he just threw blood on me."

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. Agent Doggett, I'd appreciate it if you'd just let him go. I'll take care of it. There's no need to turn him over to the courts because of this little incident."

Doggett sat back against the handrail on the wall, holding his stained jacket in front of him.

"Look, I'm sorry he's caused you this trouble, I'll pay for your dry cleaning or replace your suit, whatever, just don't send him to jail, please?" Her eyes pleaded for her, alternating between them.

"So, are you Mrs. Suitor?" Scully asked.

"Yes, I am. I'm sorry, I'm a single mom, and I try to keep him out of trouble, but he's at that age, you know. It's so hard to keep an eye on him all the time. I assure you I don't approve of this sort of thing. It's just that I work during the day, and you know how boys can be." She talked fast and wrung her hands nervously, worrying the handle of the purse she held in front of her.

"Well, I'm sorry, but he assaulted a federal officer," Doggett said seriously. "It was a pretty foolish and dangerous thing for him to do."

"I know, I'm so sorry. He will be sorry too, once he realizes what he's done. These friends of his have him so worked up, he's just not thinking right." She ran a hand trough her hair brushing it back from her forehead. Scully had thought she was an older woman, perhaps in her forties, but she suddenly realized that the slight woman before her was no older than she was.

"He says the facility is holding his father hostage." Doggett said, watching to see her reaction. She put a hand over her mouth and stepped back, finding a chair against the opposite wall and sitting down hard.

"Oh my god, he actually said that?" Doggett nodded and she shook her head. "I don't know what to say. I've talked to him about this many times, and he just won't believe me. My husband, Bill Sr., was a good man, he had a lot of dreams. He just wasn't a good father, and being tied down to a family wasn't the sort of thing he was cut out for." She opened her purse and rooted around for a tissue, which she used to dab at her eyes, and then continued. "When Billy was nine his father left. He said he was going to go protest at this facility, and that's what Billy always believed. He's hung onto that hope for years, that his dad would be coming back anytime. I know Bill wasn't a family man, he was just looking for a way to get out, a good time to run. I've tried to explain to Bill Jr. that his father left us, but he won't believe it. That damned Grissom is the worst. He encourages him so he'll come to these protests." She shook her head again. "I don't know what I can say that will convince him. I just keep hoping that as he gets older he'll realize our marriage wasn't as story-book perfect as he'd like to remember it."

"Who's Grissom?" Doggett asked.

"He's the leader of this animal rights group. He practically brainwashes these kids in order to build up his little group." She jumped to her feet again. "Please, this whole thing is my fault. I'll make it right and set him straight. I don't want him to end up in jail. You know how they are now about treating minors like adults. Who knows what could happen to him."

Doggett glanced at his partner, but Scully threw it back to him. The boy had assaulted him, but it had turned out to be a harmless attack. If he wanted to let it slide, there was no reason not to. Finally he stood up.

"Alright, I'll let him off the hook this time. You can pick him up this afternoon at the police station. Sheriff Brett will tell you where. I still want to talk to him some more about his protesting friends and find out what he knows. Plus a day at the police station will give him a little more time to consider his actions. Then he's all yours."

"Thank you, sir, thank you. I'll make sure he stays out of trouble this time." She backed away a few steps down the hall. "I'll make it right," she said again, then turned and walked quickly away.

"Lucky kid." Scully said.


	7. Chapter 7

"This is Agent Doggett, out of the DC office. I'm investigating a case down in Heisson, WA. I need someone to look up some information for me. Sure, I'll hold." Doggett leaned against the smudged glass of the phone booth and looked around the town, a motel, a diner, and a few one-story cinderblock buildings. There were no traffic lights, just a stop sign at the main junction in town where the highway met Main Street before impatiently rushing out the other side, heading for the mountains. It was cool, but not quite cold yet, and the sky was about as blue and clear as anyone could ask for. It was hard to believe it had been raining so hard the night before that the evidence techs had had a difficult time collecting any trace evidence before the scene was rinsed clean.

"Agent Willmore here. What can I do for you?" The voice on the phone brought him back to the task at hand.

"Yes, this is Agent Doggett, out of the DC office. I'm investigating a multiple homicide in Heisson, WA. We have some threat letters here to a local research facility where the victims worked, all from animal rights groups. I wondered if you can look up these groups and let me know what we've got on file for them?"

"Sure, what have you got?"

"Ok," Doggett opened the folder and flipped through the pages. "There's one here called the Animal Rights League. Another called Halt Testing Now." He flipped through the pages. "And one where someone signed his name as Pete."

"Well, I can tell you right now, Agent Doggett, Pete is Peter Grissom, head of the Animal Rights League. I don't even need to look them up to tell you about them, they've been responsible for some very destructive protests around the northwest the last few years. Two years ago they raided a mink farm outside of Seattle, letting several thousand dollars worth of mink loose, and last year they destroyed Indian canoes up on the Makah Indian reservation to prevent the tribe from taking part in a ritual whale hunt. Most recently we suspect they were involved in an explosion at a squirrel farm which killed the owner and allowed about 300 exotic squirrels to escape."

"An exotic squirrel farm?" Doggett asked, incredulous.

"Yeah, you'd be surprised what people keep as pets. The ARL is after anyone who keeps animals, animals as pets, animals in research labs, farms, anything. They usually strike big targets, farms, breeders, stuff like that, but we can never quite pin them down enough to press charges. They aren't shy about hitting places when they are occupied, or at night, so they've caused quite a bit of death and destruction over the years. We might be lucky and get an individual, but they always keep their distance from the group, so we can't do anything about breaking them up."

"Great. Well, do you have anything on the other group?"

"I'm going to have to look them up and get back to you. You're in Heisson? Where is that?"

"A little over an hour north of Portland."

"Damn, I've lived here my whole life and never heard of it. Well, you're pretty close to Grissom, he's in Portland. I can give you his address and you can go have a talk with him. I'll call you back when I get something on the other group."

Doggett wrote down the address and gave him his cell phone number, though it was pretty iffy that he would be anywhere where the cell phone worked when he called. The town of Heisson itself was well out of the service area.

"I'll leave a message if I have to." Willmore assured him before hanging up.

Doggett looked at the address and consulted the map in the car. It was a bit of a drive, but it was his only avenue of investigation right now, and he seemed to be running out of locals who could contribute to the case.

Forty-five minutes later he pulled his car up in front of a brick building in downtown Portland. He checked the address again and got out, walking up the short flight of steps to the door. There was a row of buzzers outside the lobby door, with names under them. The third one from the left read 'Grissom'. He pressed it and held it down for a few seconds.

"Who are you?" an impassionate voice came out of the intercom mounted above the wood and glass door to the lobby. He looked up and saw the security camera pointed down at him. Doggett removed his badge wallet and flipped it open, holding it up towards the camera.

"Agent John Doggett, FBI. I have a few questions I'd like to ask you."

There was a long pause, and Doggett closed his wallet and tucked it securely back into his inner jacket pocket. He waited, but did not fidget, concentrating on the door as if he fully expected it to open. A minute later he saw a man come down the inside staircase to the lobby and come to the door.

Pete Grissom was not what Doggett had expected. To him, an animal activist was likely to be a loner, a nature lover, somewhat of a hippie-type, if you'll excuse the description. Clean-cut, with short, blond, slicked-back hair, wearing tan Dockers and a light blue button down shirt, Pete Grissom had a baby face that implied he was in his late twenties if that. He looked more like an ivy-league student then a domestic terrorist. If what the agent in Seattle had told him was true though, this man was one of the most dangerous and ruthless people on American soil right now, but smart enough to keep his own hands clean so no one could legally touch him.

"Agent Doggett," Grissom held out his hand, and Doggett shook it, nodding. "I'd rather talk outside, if you don't mind. It's such a nice day. Shall we walk?" Grissom gestured towards the sidewalk and began walking, leaving the agent to catch up. Doggett followed along, surprised that Grissom would take such control of the interview already. There was definitely a power play being made, and he didn't like that he had been caught off guard.

"Mr. Grissom, I need to ask you a few questions," Doggett began.

"They all come to me with questions, but they never really hear what I say, you know?" He continued walking briskly down the sidewalk. Doggett kept up, but still found it unsettling, he couldn't even make eye contact. "Have you any idea how many people I talk to every week, how many interviews I give to newspapers and TV stations, and they never really get it? They all want to make me out as a nut, but when they see I have valid concerns, they lose interest. What sort of questions do you have for me, Agent Doggett?"

"I want to know what you know about a small government research installation near Heisson, Washington." Grissom stopped in his tracks.

"I know this - that place is so secret it doesn't even have a name." He looked down at the ground and began walking again. Soon they came to a small park. It was mostly deserted, but a few teenagers were playing Frisbee in the field behind them. A dog ran around and barked, chasing the path of the frisbee. Grissom lead Doggett to a bench and sat down.

"What else do you know about it," Doggett asked. Grissom fidgeted for the first time, looking uncomfortable. When he spoke again, his voice was shaken, just barely, but enough so that Doggett heard it.

"I think I'd rather hear what you know. I have some people in my organization who have been trying, quite unsuccessfully, to get that facility to abide by the guidelines of the National Humane Society and ASPCA and have outside veterinarians inspect their premises to ensure that the animals being kept there are treated as humanely as possible."

"How do you know there are animals there? How do you know it's not just a military installation?"

"The incinerators tipped us off that something was going on there. They burn all their own waste, so none of it ever leaves the premises. They refuse to let the ASPCA see the condition of the animals after testing, so they burn them themselves. They could be cutting them up like Jack the Ripper or all we know. We've seen poachers, our word for people who buy animals from private parties under the guise of giving them a good home, and then sell them to labs, come to the facility with a full truck and leave empty. Animals go in but they don't come out."

"What have your people been doing there?"

"Nothing, we've tried to infiltrate the facility once to get evidence of the atrocities and shut them down, but the man we sent in disappeared. I think he may have been arrested and is being held in a military prison, or he could have been killed. It was about six years ago, and no one has heard from him since."

"What was the man's name?"

"Bill Suitor. He was a good guy, really cared about the animals. He left behind a wife and two little kids. They're almost teenagers now. We try to take care of them, raise money to help out when we can."

"When you're not bombing mink farms?" Doggett asked, and saw him turn defensive.

"Hey, our group doesn't sponsor those kinds of activities." He turned on Doggett, raising his voice. Doggett watched his reaction carefully, but didn't show any emotion, didn't even flinch. He knew from experience that sometimes pushing the buttons was just the way to get someone to spill something they hadn't intended.

"Just because our cause occasionally attracts people who are driven to using violent means to try to stop the injustices they see, which go unpunished by our otherwise overly strict justice system, that doesn't make our whole group a bunch of terrorists." His calm demeanor returned as quickly as it had gone. "We try to make change happen peacefully. Sometimes change doesn't happen fast enough, and people get tired of waiting."

"Have people in your group been writing threats to the Heisson facility?"

"Maybe, I can't control what everybody does."

"One of the letters I have was written by you."

Grissom stopped and stared at the agent, apparently turning over options in his mind. "I don't believe you can prove that. Besides, it's all just empty threats. The place is way too difficult to get into to bother with trying to breach it."

"So you've considered that?"

"Our group doesn't participate in that sort of thing, Agent Doggett, that would be illegal," he spoke as if to a five year old. "However, again, if an individual decides to take things into their own hands, it's a free country."

"Spoken like a politician. You know, just because it's a free country doesn't mean you're free to create the sort of murder and mayhem that your group seems to be known for, Mr. Grissom."

"Well, the people who get hurt in these incidents are usually responsible for perpetrating atrocities on animals for many years, completely unchecked, so my heart doesn't weep for them." Grissom stood up. "If anything, I wish we had more people willing to take risks and help really shut down some of these facilities. Just think about that research facility, Agent Doggett. It runs unchecked, unsupervised by anyone. They could be doing god only knows what in there, and no one will stop them." He shook his head regretfully. "We might be able to save a lot of lives, for the few that would be initially lost. But you know, things are changing. I've had contact with some researchers at various facilities lately that are starting to come over to our side, seeing the error of their ways. Right now I look like a nut because our voices are few, but when there are many more voices joining ours then people will stand up and pay attention. Now, if you have no further questions, I'd like to go. My family is probably wondering where I am."

Grissom walked quickly away, back the way he came. Doggett watched him go. He had asked enough questions for now. A little research was in order, and he wanted the FBI lab to have a look at the threat letters. If he found what he thought he would, he'd be back to talk to Mr Grissom soon enough. He cell phone buzzed in his pocket and he pulled it out.

"Yeah," he answered impatiently, still thinking of Grissom as he hurried away.

"Agent Doggett, it's me." The familiar voice of his partner greeted him.  Immediately he could tell she was stressed, something was wrong.

"What's up, Agent Scully?"

"We have another victim. I'm at the scene now with Sheriff Brett."

"Are you sure this latest guy is tied in with our other murders?" He waited, hearing shuffling on the other end of the line. He heard Scully thank somebody, her voice muffled.

"It looks like it. He was a researcher at the facility. His name is.. John Stave." He could hear her flipping pages. "53 years old, married. You thought the house in Heisson was big, you should see this one. This guy was very well paid for whatever he did. Unfortunately, even his wife didn't seem to know what he was researching, just that it was something medical. Let's see, she is 23 years old."

"Rich old man with a trophy wife. That explains why she doesn't know what he does." Doggett muttered. "Don't ask, don't tell."

"Looks like it. The body was relieved of the musculature along the arms and legs. Then the killer apparently used the excised tissue to paint a message on the side of the pool house in blood."

"He did what?" Doggett furrowed his brow, sure he had heard her wrong.

"The killer sliced off most of the major muscles on the arms and legs and used them to paint a message on the wall. It said 'these men are not to be blamed for nothing'. It's a reference to..."

"Jack the Ripper." Doggett completed her sentence with a sigh.


	8. Chapter 8

The Portland office of the FBI was a surprisingly busy place. Located downtown, they shared the building with a number of other offices, only reserving a couple floors for the federal agents' use. Office space and computer terminals were at a premium, and Agent Doggett was only reluctantly given access to a terminal for his case research, while the small lab on the next floor examined the threatening letters for latent prints and other evidence to lead them to the author.

Doggett ran the victim's names through the federal crime database, hoping to find something there, but they were all clean, no arrests, no convictions, no ties to violent crime. He dug a little deeper and pulled up personal information on each person. He could find general information on them, where they lived, who was married, who was divorced, but still nothing that really helped. Along the way he found previous places of employment, colleges they had attended. He gathered all the information as he ran across it, setting pieces aside for further inspection. Like a flow chart, each piece of information branched out in other directions, and by following them, he would eventually get to the end. Sometimes the branches led you to dead ends though, so he knew he needed to gather everything, like a squirrel packing it away for winter. Two hours had passed before his initial investigations led him anywhere interesting.

Accessing information through the IRS, he found the victim's old tax records. These led him to the name of the research facilities business branch, which actually handed out the paychecks. A cross reference through FBI files brought him to the employment records for that company, and finally a comprehensive list of the hundred or so researchers who had been employed there over the last ten years, along with their hire and termination dates. Every one was a potential suspect. He began looking their records up, looking for any hint that they could be capable of violent crimes.

It was dull, tedious work but Doggett knew as well as anyone that it was the very basis of good police work. Careful, thorough checking of everyone involved was the only way to avoid standing around scratching your head while the bodies piled up. If the Colonel wouldn't let him interview these people at the facility, he'd at least find out as much about them as possible, and then, armed with whatever he could gather, he'd hunt them down and talk to them in person.

"Agent Doggett," Scully came in and stood over him, watching as he scrolled through a list on the computer monitor. "They told me I'd find you up here. How is your research going?"

"Good, have a seat." He reached across the cubical and pulled over the extra chair, a stackable chrome job that looked like someone had lifted it from the office cafeteria. She sat down and picked up one of the sheets of printouts he had already piled on the desk next to the mouse pad.

"So is the coroner going to get to this new victim today?"

"No, since this one was within Vancouver city limits, the city coroner is handling it, and he's backlogged. Sheriff Brett was going to see if he could get it moved up the schedule, or moved to the county coroner's office." She glanced over the paper she had lifted from his pile. "Is this everyone who works at the facility?"

He nodded, leaning over to glance at it himself. "I'm working my way down the list. Checking for priors, domestic disturbances, anything that would show a violent history. It could be someone who works there, or someone who has been terminated, so I'm checking both. I'm also waiting for results to come back on the threat letters from the research facility. The lab's examining them now."

"How come you're concentrating on the facility employees if you suspect these animal rights people?"

"Because, Grissom talked about sending people in to infiltrate the facility, and having researchers on the inside, so I wanted to cover all my bases."

"Sounds like you've got everything under control."

"I'm getting it. Here," he shuffled through the papers as Scully laid the list of employees back on top of the stack. He pulled out one sheet with a color mug shot at the top. "This is the animal activist I talked to earlier today. This is from an arrest at a protest a couple years ago."

"You think he's our man?" She looked at Grissom's picture.

"I think he's organizing and calling the shots. Believe me, this guy was slick, I'm sure he's an expert at keeping his own hands clean."

"But how could he organize these violent killings? You can't get your average Joe to skin a guy and cleave off the meat. It's just too violent."

"I think he's got someone working for him who's a complete psycho, someone who enjoys it. He tells them he wants this place shut down, he gives them names and background on the scientists, gets them all worked up about the atrocities being committed there, and lets them go to it. For the killer, it's a perfect situation. The people you work for cover your tracks, and you get to do the dirty work." His cell rang and he pulled it out. He listened, muttered a few acknowledgments, turned it off and pocketed it again.

"That was the lab. They confirmed at least two of the letters have Grissom's prints on them."

"Well, do you want to bring him in? I'm sure you could hold him for a couple days just for threatening a government facility."

"No, let's get the Portland police to keep an eye on him for us. Grissom's not as important as the guy who works for him. We can head back to the facility and watch for suspicious activity, if we get lucky we might run into the killer waiting for their next victim to leave the facility. I'd also like to find someone who works inside that we can talk to and get a picture of what's going on in there." Scully nodded quietly in agreement as she flipped through his notes. She stopped, reading a page with interest.

"What have you got there?" Doggett asked, leaning to read over her shoulder.

"It's your notes on Johnson, the first victim. He was a heart doctor."

"Yeah, heart doctor, had his heart ripped out. Our killer has a real sense of humor, don't you think?" Doggett shook his head and went back to the computer. Scully tossed his notes back onto the desk and leaned back into the chair.

"Tell me this," Doggett said quietly, reading the screen as it loaded. "What's a Dermal Elasto-Polymer?"

"Plastic skin," she answered quickly.

"Plastic skin. It says that's Sloan's specialty."

"The guy who got skinned." She replied.

"Yep. Someone thinks they're pretty clever."


	9. Chapter 9

By mid-afternoon Agents Doggett and Scully were heading back towards the small town of Heisson. Doggett had accumulated a thick folder of information, and Scully had had a chance to go over much of it. She shared the coroner's reports with him, so they could both be as caught up as possible. On their way back through Vancouver they swung by the coroner's office and picked up a preliminary report on Crawford. Doggett had waited in the parking garage, sifting through his notes, while she retrieved the report.

As she rode back down in the elevator, she flipped through the folder. The major damage done to the latest victim involved a rough removal of the eyeballs with a rough instrument, again, a serrated hunting knife. Cause of death was blood loss. He had bled out on his own driveway, just a few yards from the safety of his house and family, she thought with a shiver. Her stomach churned as she glanced at the photos of the victim's face with the blood washed off. She flipped the folder closed and took a deep breath.

She bowed her head and closed her eyes. The last time she saw Mulder he'd been so emaciated so unlike the healthy man who'd left her months before and disappeared in the forest. His cheeks were pierced and his body was bruised and had had holes drilled into it. She had barely been able to look at him. They had passed on the autopsy and buried him quickly, she couldn't have done it herself, and she didn't want anyone else to perform one. Still, she had felt like a coward, not being able to face him one last time, unable to investigate the tortures he’d suffered and hunt for the men who had done it to him. She had slipped his coffin into the ground, knowing she'd never see him again...

She pressed the stop button on the elevator with one finger, and leaned forward until her forehead rested against the cold metal of the instrument panel. She squeezed her eyes tight closed and swallowed hard. If she had time alone, she could have cried it out and let the feeling pass over her in waves, drown in it until she couldn't feel anything, but now was not the time. Her new partner was waiting in the car, engine running, right outside the elevator doors in the underground parking lot, and she couldn't return to him with red eyes. She stood up straight and let go of the button, then smoothed her hands over the front of her jacket. By the time she reached the car she had regained her composure.

She slid into the passenger seat, and as soon as she closed the car door, Doggett handed her a cell phone, which had been in her jacket pocket on the seat.

"Your phone rang. Sheriff Brett says we'd better come meet him in Heisson and he'll take us out to another crime scene."

"Another one?" She turned around and added the new coroner's report to the growing pile of reports on the back seat.

"The mailman found it a couple hours ago. Apparently this one has been dead a while. It might be the first victim." Doggett turned the key and started the car. "He says it's up in the hills, so if we meet him in town he'll lead us up there, else we'll never find it ourselves."

\----------

They met Brett in the parking lot of the town's tiny grocery store, and followed him deeper into the country. At first they were on a well-traveled highway, but shortly turned off onto a semi-paved road. That led them to a gravel road, and soon a dirt road which wound it's way through the trees and over gentle rolling hills, rough with the debris left behind from clear cuts. Finally the road dipped back down into woods, passing several abandoned and collapsing mobile homes, before coming out into a small clearing, with a modest restored farmhouse at the center of it, surrounded by paddocks and pastures where a few horses grazed. Police cars and the black vehicles from the county crime lab filled the front yard. Brett pulled off to the side of the driveway, and Doggett pulled the rental in behind him.

Scully stepped out onto the gravel drive, and almost instinctively took a deep breath of what should have been fresh country air. Instead she got a whiff of something pungent, rotten.

"Like I told you on the phone, the mailman found it this afternoon." She heard Brett talking to Doggett on the other side of the car. "He noticed the dog and the horses in the front paddock here were all beggin' him when he drove up. Then he noticed the smell, and he peeked in a few windows and then called us."

"Who is it, do you know?" Doggett asked as he and Brett began walking to the house.

"It's another researcher, Robert Dawson. We called the facility and they confirmed that he hasn't been at work all week."

"It would have been nice if they'd volunteered that information when I talked to the CO this morning." Doggett pulled open he door and held it while Brett walked through. Agent Scully was a few steps behind, and stopped before crossing the threshold. The smell coming from inside the house was overpowering and indescribably foul. Unfortunately it wasn't her first encounter with it, but familiarity in this case at least, didn't make it any easier to take. She caught herself, steeled her nerve, and stepped inside.

Brett led them through the front room, and into a small room in the back of the house which had apparently functioned as a den. There was a computer monitor and keyboard, but the computer itself was missing. There were bookshelves, but no books. The body lay flat on its back in the center of the small room, in a pool of dried blood, which was neatly confined to a small area around the body. The body was distended, but the arms and legs looked oddly flat, like a deflated blow-up doll. Scully went to it and carefully bent down, holding her breath against the stench.

"Are you the pathologist from the FBI?" The investigator who was leaning over the body taking a sample of the blood spoke quietly. He scratched a few flakes of blood off the floor into a plastic baggie and sealed it, handing it off to an assistant behind him.

"Yes," she answered shortly, taking in a quick gulp of air through her mouth. The stench still filtered up into her nose, unavoidable in this close proximity.

"You're not going to believe this." He reached out and with his rubber- gloved hands pressed down on the corpse's arm. It flexed and squashed under his pressure, like a dry sponge.

"What," she began, confused. It was as if her eyes were playing tricks on her.

"No bones. His arm and leg bones are gone." The man shook his head. "It's the damnedest thing I've ever seen."

"Oh my God," Scully slipped on her rubber gloves and lifted the arm. It barely budged, tearing up off the floor as if it were glued. She lifted it enough to see an incision beginning at the wrist and running up the back of the arm. It had been sliced open, the bone carefully removed, and then the body was laid down so as to hide the cut.

The tech looked at the arm and attempted to lift it further, but instead more flesh tore off and remained stuck fast to the wood floor. "We're going to need to scrape this guy up just to get him out of here," he said loudly to his partner. Scully dropped the arm, and stood up, feeling the all too familiar nausea starting to roll over her like a wave. She took a step back and bumped into Agent Doggett.

"What have we got here?" He leaned over the body for a better look, covering his mouth and nose with one hand and squinting at the body, as if he could escape the smell by closing off all points of entry. Scully turned, pushed past him and walked quickly out the front door, not trusting herself to speak.

Outside she walked towards the cars, then continued past them to where the property was lined with a thick stand of fir and birch trees. She stopped there, in the cool shade under the trees, and found herself standing on a cover of pine needles, surrounded by low ferns and vine maples. The sweet smell of the forest was almost enough to wipe out the smell of death. She steadied herself, leaning a hand against the rough tree trunk next to her and caught her breath. This is too hard, she thought bitterly. I can't work like this.

She heard footsteps crunching down the gravel drive behind her and didn't turn around to see who it was. She waited for his voice.

"Agent Scully?" Doggett stopped a few yards away, approaching slowly as if he were cornering a wounded animal. An apt description, in her mind.

"Go away, Agent Doggett." Her voice almost cracked, and she covered by staring intently into the forest, swallowing hard. She had been dragging all afternoon, forcing herself to remain concentrated, losing her train of thought as often as not. Work seemed to be the furthest thing from her mind despite her best efforts. That realization only made it all worse. What would she do if she couldn't work, if she couldn't concentrate, if she couldn't contribute?

"What's the matter?" His voice had more than a touch of concern. She didn't want that either, didn't want to share, didn't need his pity. She instantly regretted letting her feelings slip enough to show. She should have toughed it out, stayed at the scene, not let on. He came close enough to lay a hand on her shoulder, but she shrugged it off.

"I'm going back to DC. I shouldn't be here. I'm not ready." She sighed. "I just want to go home." She turned around, leaning her back against the tree. She suddenly felt a frantic, almost animal-like desire to flee, to run away. "I can't do this, I can't just look at the victims and... analyze their conditions, and move past it as if it didn't mean anything. I've lost my nerve." Her heart was pounding in her chest and her breaths were coming fast. She almost gulped at the air between her words, as if she would drown in them. "I got sick during the autopsy today, I had to leave the room and sit the exam out." She looked at him, her eyes full of fear and shame, "I've never gotten sick during an exam, Agent Doggett, no matter how bad it was. Never." She looked away, not wanting him to see the tears which were on the verge of pushing their way out. He stepped in front of her, placed a hand on each of her shoulders, and tried to move into her line of sight. She squirmed in a weak bid to escape but finally just turned her head away. "I've lost my stomach for the job."

"Ok, Ok. Dana." His voice softened. "Look here. Look at me." She resisted. "Right at me." His voice was firm. She complied. He pinned her down with startlingly blue eyes, breathing slowly. She stared back and found herself slowly relaxing, her breaths synchronizing with his. "Right here," he said quietly, focussing on her. A minute or two passed, and she slowly felt her head clearing of the gray panic which had threatened to close in on her.

"Ok. You're ok now." He rubbed her shoulders, digging his thumbs into the muscles above her collarbone, watching her eyes intently. She felt a wave of calm descend over her, and she closed her eyes and bowed her head, concentrating on the feeling. "I'm going to tell you something very important, Ok? Are you listening?" She nodded. "You haven't lost anything, Agent Scully. You are as capable as you have ever been. The only thing you're missing now is Agent Mulder." She closed her eyes and looked away. It hurt so bad to hear his name spoken, especially dragged out in that not-quite-right way that it sounded coming from Agent Doggett. His hands slid down to glide over her upper arms, squeezing them through the thick wool of her coat. "Don't think you're the only person who's gone through this."

"No, not like this," she squeezed her eyes closed.

"Oh, come on," his voice betrayed his frustration and she looked up at him, surprised. "Why do you think you're so special? You think he dies and a week or two later you'll be back to normal? It doesn't happen that way." She held her head up, avoiding his eyes and feeling that maybe she had better rebuild her defenses. Mulder would have been content to just be there for her, as he had been many times in the past, but not John Doggett. Since the day she met him it seemed he had never missed an opportunity to set things straight and get it out in the open. She hated that.

"Now, I'm not going to presume that I know what this feels like for you," he spoke carefully, "but I want you to know, I've been in the same neighborhood."

She thought about that, taking her mind off her own troubles for a moment. "Your son," she said, suddenly sensing the ground had dropped out from under her and the world was, again, not as it had seemed. How could she have forgotten? She had read about it in his personnel file. He'd lost his little boy to an unsolved murder. It made her feel sick to her stomach all over again. There was so much pain and suffering in the world, more than enough to go around so everyone could have a little.

"The only thing you can do is try to move on. The one thing you shouldn't do is quit." He caught her eye again, had her complete attention. "This feeling will pass, but if you quit and go home, odds are you won't ever come back to work. I've seen it happen to other guys, good agents. I know I wouldn't have made it if I hadn't just bulldozed my way through the first few weeks."

Scully nodded, and took a deep breath. "Just the first few weeks," she asked with a shudder.

"First few hours, first few days, first few weeks," he said. "After a while, you just quit counting. Weeks, months, years..." He let go of her arms and stepped back, giving her space. He looked tired, and just mentioning his son seemed to age him ten years. Some scrubby bushes lined the driveway behind them, and on the other side of them the land dropped away quickly, down to a small but turbulent river. She could hear its water rushing by below them, laughing and carefree.

"I'm so sorry, John." She ran her fingers down his arm until she found his hand and held it. His rough fingers moved against her palm. He finally spoke up.

"Just stick it out." He squeezed her hand, then dropped it. "Don't give up, and don't get wrapped up in it. You can't let it beat you." He took a deep breath and blew it out. "We'll get through this case. Then, if you go home and want to take some time off, you can."

"Honestly, I don't know if I can do it." She looked up at the sky through the breaks in the trees. It had turned a deep, rich blue above them as night crowded out the escaping daylight.

"Then just stick it out for tonight," he sighed, crossing his arms in front of his chest. "Tomorrow you can head home." He scuffed his shoe against the pine needles, feigning interest in the mark he left on the ground. "You shouldn't though. I'm telling you, you'll regret it forever if you give up now."


	10. Chapter 10

It was fully dark by the time Agent Doggett parked their rental car nose-out on a gravel road within clear view of the research facility's exit onto the highway. He had grabbed take-out at the diner and tossed it in the backseat while Agent Scully checked them into the motel across the street. It was just an overnight stopping place for hunters on their way into the forest, but it was sufficient for their needs. He couldn't see how they would be getting much sleep there anyway. They returned to the research facility, and drove past the entrance on the highway a couple times, looking for anyone or anything suspicious before they pulled off the road and parked in the shadows.

The gravel road was actually someone's driveway, and having grown up in the country, he knew he'd better ask permission before expecting to leave the car there all night, lest he find himself facing an angry farmer with a loaded shotgun halfway through the stakeout. He left Scully to watch the facility, and walked up the long gravel road to the farmhouse, buried in the trees around a bend. The darkness, far from the world of city lights and streetlights, enveloped him fully, and he pulled out his flashlight to allow him to follow the path. A glance upward reminded him of just how much living in the city had taken away from him. Above were so many stars that he would be hard-pressed to find the ones he knew he could read as both clock and compass, a benefit of his marine survival training years earlier.

At the farmhouse an old man answered the door. Dressed in muddy jeans and a flannel shirt, he stood just inside the screen door. "What's the matter, son? Broke down?" He looked over the agent skeptically. Doggett pulled out his badge and ID.

"No sir, FBI. I'd like to use your driveway this evening. We're monitoring activity at the government facility across the street. Your road is the closest place to park and watch their exit road from." He put the badge away and backed up a step as the old man pushed the screen door open and stepped out onto the porch. He looked out towards the highway.

"Well, it's damn well about time someone looked into it. They're up to all kinds of weird things around here at night."

"What d'ya mean?" Doggett was surprised.

"Maneuvers, I guess. I've woke up at night and seen soldiers, all dressed in black with night goggles on, carrying rifles like they're ready to fire," he held his hands up at face level, indicating an invisible rifle, aimed and ready. "They come out like a swarm, climb all over the countryside like they're looking for something. They've been all over my farm in the small hours of the morning, when they think we're asleep, and never once asked permission to come onto the property."

"How long has this been going on?"

"All week. It's always at night."

"Well, I'll keep an eye on them tonight. We'll see if anything happens." Doggett shook the old farmer's hand and stepped off the porch. He heard the screen slam behind him as he walked back to the car. The research facility had about 300 acres fenced off with razor wire, comprising both forest and field. Why would they risk coming out onto civilian land for maneuvers they could just as easily practice in the privacy of their own compound?

He slid into the car next to Agent Scully. "Anything happen?"

"No. Did you get permission to stay here?"

"Yes, and a story. The farmer believes troops from the facility have been practicing maneuvers in the countryside at night." Doggett turned around and dug into the bag with his dinner on the back seat and pulled out a paper box, already stained with grease.

"Why would they do that?" She asked no one in particular. "They have a huge compound."

"Maybe they're looking for the killers too. I guess we'll see what happens tonight. I was hoping if these animal rights activists were involved we might see them skulking around here watching for another victim to follow home."

"I don't know, with so much attention on them after three murders?"

"Well, we could get lucky." He opened the dinner box, filling the car with the smell of fried chicken. Scully looked away. "Aren't you hungry?" He asked between mouthfuls.

"No, I'm fine." She said quietly. He shrugged and continued eating.

"When I interviewed Grissom, he mentioned one of their members who supposedly came here to infiltrate the facility and disappeared." Doggett dug one of the folders out of the pile he had accumulated from his afternoon of research and handed it to Scully, then flipped on the dome light so she could see it.

Scully opened the folder and pulled out a photo of a young man, probably in his early thirties when he disappeared. He had thick red hair, and a plain face. "It's a mug shot from a previous conviction for vandalism at a veterinary clinic." Doggett explained.

"How long has he been missing?" She asked.

"Six years. A long time."

"A long time for your family to be waiting for you to come home." She closed the folder and set it back on the seat between them, then turned off the dome light, throwing the car into darkness again.

"We don't even know that he ever came here," Doggett said. "He told his family he was coming here, but he could have just left to start a new life. His car was never found."

Doggett pulled the last piece of chicken out of his box and held it up in the near total darkness. "You sure you don't want a piece? Because this is really good. It's their specialty." He wagged the drumstick at her. "Besides, my mom taught me to share."

She considered it. "Well, maybe a piece."

"Good." He reached into the backseat and produced another box. "Because she also taught me to bring enough for the whole class. Keeps people from mooching your dinner."

"Smart woman," she said with a sly smile. "Thank you." Scully gratefully took the box and began digging in.

As they ate in silence a few cars passed down the highway, but none entered or left the facility. Scully's cell phone rang and she answered it. After a few minutes of "yes, yes, I see" she clicked it off again.

"That was Sheriff Brett. He says the crime scene team is done with Dawson's house."

"What did they find?" He tossed his empty dinner box into the back seat and settled back into his seat.

"The de-boning was pretty messy, but someone came along later and cleaned the scene up pretty well. He was killed right there in the den. They found evidence of blood splatter that also indicated the computer was there at the time, and the bookshelves were full."

"So whoever cleaned it up didn't want us to find out what he was into, or up to, I guess. Why would they clean the scene and leave the body?"

"Maybe they didn't think there was anything of value we could get from the body."

"Or maybe they wanted us to see the damage that was done. He was the first victim. They're making an example of him."

"They've made an example of all of them so far." Scully answered, setting her half-empty dinner box on the dash. "They also found a flyer from the Animal Rights League on the floor behind the computer desk. They're checking it for prints now."

Doggett sat up a little straighter at that, leaning his arm on the steering wheel. "Maybe the killer dropped it so we'd know who to credit the killing to, to help strike fear into the other researchers and get their message across to the facility."

"Or was he one of the sympathetic researchers Grissom talked about?" Scully asked.

"Then who killed him? And why?"

For what seemed like a long time they both stared out the window into the darkness, lost in their thoughts. "You should have stayed at the motel," Doggett said quietly. "This might be a long night. It was my idea, there's no reason for you to lose sleep over it too."

"We're more likely to stay awake if there's two of us."

"That's what they say." Doggett agreed.

"Mulder never seemed to need sleep." Scully said quietly, remembering. "We'd go on stakeout and sometimes I'd fall asleep after a few hours. It didn't matter because I knew he'd keep watch." There was a long pause. "I wish you had gotten to meet him."

"I do too, but I don't think he was the kind of guy I would have gotten along with." Doggett rubbed a hand through his hair. A car drove by, filling the car with light for a moment, then disappeared down the highway towards civilization. He still thought Mulder was a flake, and to this day he hadn't quite figured out just what he'd gotten caught up in which had ultimately led to his death, but he knew that wasn't what Agent Scully needed to hear. "I was amazed by the devotion and loyalty he inspired within his circle of friends, though. I'll tell you, for a guy who looked like a crackpot on paper, he seemed to touch a lot of people."

"He did," Scully seemed encouraged. "There are two kinds of people. The ones who took to him, and the ones who he pissed off. Unfortunately, most of the people in the FBI fell into that second category, and once he knew he was pissing someone off, he would just keep pushing their buttons." Her words came out in a flood. It was the most talkative she had been in days, and Doggett wondered if it wasn't a relief for her to talk about Mulder out loud instead of just keeping him in her head. "If someone was in trouble though, he'd do anything to help them, no matter how they had treated him in the past. He had so much compassion for the people we worked with, for the victim's families, for everyone. He really threw himself into it. He had a big heart. He..." She trailed off, her voice wavering.

"That's not a bad way to live." Doggett said quietly. "It's a good way to be remembered."

Scully nodded in silent agreement.


	11. Chapter 11

A car, headlights off, slowly came down the road from the research facility, and Doggett sat up straight, wide awake. He reached over and gave Scully a shake, and she came to and latched onto what was going on immediately. Doggett didn't take his eyes off of the other vehicle as he reached back and found his seatbelt and snapped it into the latch. He heard Scully do the same. As the other car reached the road, it pulled out on to the highway, only turning it's lights on after it was on the main road and speeding away. Doggett started their car and pulled out, following them from a short distance behind, his headlights off. He could make out the road from the light thrown by the sliver of a moon that had risen, and the red taillights of the car ahead, plus he knew it was a straight shot into town.  

Once into town the car turned onto Main Street and disappeared into a small development of ranch-style houses on small lots. Doggett carefully followed the other car, trying to get close enough so as not to lose him if he drove into a garage. Sure enough they saw the car pull into a driveway at the far end of the block. He hit the gas and hurried down to the driveway, where he pulled the car abruptly to the curb. Before he could park it Scully was out, waving her badge at the driver who had just gotten out of the car.

"FBI. We have some questions for you." Her authoritative voice was enough to stop the startled young man, and he lifted his hands to show they were empty.

"What the hell," he began, inching back towards the door.

"We just want to ask you a few questions," Scully continued. "You are one of the researchers from the facility south of town?"

"Yeah, but I can't talk to you." He looked nervously around the neighborhood to see if they were alone.

"We won't ask you anything to compromise your security clearance." Doggett flashed his badge as well. This time the man lowered his hands and stepped forward to look at it closely. "Just give us a few minutes and we'll leave you alone."

"You can't force me to talk to you without my lawyer."

"If you want a lawyer then we can take you to the police station and hold you until your lawyer arrives, and talk to you then. This can be over with a lot faster than that, though." Scully made a good attempt at scaring him. She sounded so serious, but Doggett knew it wouldn't work exactly like that. They had nothing to take the guy in on, but he didn't know that.

"Do you want to do it that way? We won't deny you your right to have a lawyer."

"No, no. All right, five minutes. Come inside." He turned and walked up to his front door, which he unlocked and threw open. "Follow me."

 

\----------------

"Gary Maze." The young man repeated his name. "I am a researcher at the facility. That's about all I can tell you. If I breach security, I could be prosecuted for treason."

He led them to the dining room, flipping on lights as he went. The home was stark and mostly empty of furniture. The dining room table was a cheap glass and metal affair, one easily found at thrift stores. The man appeared to live for his work, based on the sparse furnishings. They all sat down. Maze slumped down, elbows on the table, and ran his hands through his short, black hair.

"Mr. Maze, did you know any of the victims?" Doggett began the interview.

"Yeah, we all worked at the facility. But you already know that. We didn't work together, not on the same projects or even in the same lab. None of them did."

"Did you know any of them personally?"

"I knew Pete pretty well. He was cool with the new researchers. Crawford was kind of cold. I shouldn't say cold, he was serious. He took his work very seriously. I didn't really know the others at all."

Scully nodded and thought about her next question. "So Gary, what was your graduate thesis on?"

"My thesis?" He looked confused. "Cochlear implants."

"Cochlear?" Doggett repeated, not sure of the word.

"Like hearing aids, only I was researching allowing deaf people to hear through the use of implant-able chips with miniaturized electromagnetic coils. I did some groundbreaking work on how those chips would be hooked into the human neural system. That really got potential employer's attention. When I graduated two years ago, there was practically a bidding war. The government won, and sent me here to continue the work of a scientist who was retiring."

"Aren't you worried about what happened to the other researchers?" Doggett asked. Gary considered it, fidgeting, wiping a hand across his mouth, and sitting back.

"Well, everybody is." He looked from one agent to the other. "We don't know who's doing it, there's just lots of rumors going around. We don't even know exactly what happened to the guys who died."

"Do you want to know?" Doggett set the folders with the autopsy reports on the table. Maze looked at them as if he had set a rat on the table. His eyes kept darting back and forth, between the agents and the folder.

"I don't know. My work is pretty theoretical. I'm not sure I want to see what happened to these guys. I heard Pete was," he swallowed hard, "skinned."

"He was." Doggett answered the unasked question, his voice serious, his face impassionate. "Jake had his heart ripped out through a hole in his chest, and Crawford had his eyes dug out with a dull knife." He flipped open the folder to a picture of Crawford on the exam table. His eyes stayed on Maze the whole time. He needed to see his reaction.

Maze stared at the photos for a moment, a look of complete horror drawing over his face, then jumped up from the table and ran into the bathroom, where they promptly heard him vomiting. A couple more wretches and some water ran. A minute later he came out, but leaned against the corner of the room, far enough away he couldn't see the pictures, and wiped the involuntary tears from his eyes with the back of his hand.

"OK, look, I'm going to say some things here, but you need to understand, I have to be careful." He looked around the room as if someone else could be listening. He lowered his voice. "I didn't know what went on there until last week. I went to Crawford about it. Turns out everybody else already knew about it, they all had their hands in it."

Jackpot, Doggett thought. The autopsy pictures had done the trick.

"What are you talking about?" Scully asked.

"There's some… special testing situations there."

"Animal testing?" Doggett asked.

"Human testing." Maze glanced at the folder on the table. "Everyone who has died so far had advanced to the point of testing their research on a human subject. Pete wanted to leave. I think he was killed to keep him from getting out and spreading the word about this facility."

"But Crawford didn't want to leave, did he?" Doggett asked. Maze shook his head.

"No, and I don't understand why he was killed. He was brilliant. His work was coming along really well." He wiped his hand over his mouth again and ran it down until he was grabbing his own neck, kneading it nervously. "I'm tell you one more thing - we weren't all on the same team, but we were all bio-mech scientists."

"Is there anyone there who would want to kill these men?" Doggett asked.

"No, not as far as I know. Everyone's got their own project. The money flow is pretty much unlimited. There's no competition between the researchers."

"Why aren't you staying in the compound?" Scully asked. "Seems like you'd be a lot safer there."

"I just came home to get some clothes, and I'm going back tonight."

"So, Gary, have you done testing on humans?" Doggett asked, trying to sound as non-judgmental as he could.

"I have not personally done it, but I recently found out that earlier versions of the project I'm working on had been applied to the test subject."

"Successfully?" Scully asked.

"Not quite. They came back with changes that needed to be made. I didn't realize how they had gotten them." He looked at Scully like he was looking for forgiveness. "I wouldn't have done it, it breaks the oath, it's against everything I believe in. There's a process that has to be followed. Rigorous testing before something is applied to a human subject. But these guys are making up their own rules."

Doggett reached across the table and dragged the autopsy report back towards him, flipping the folder closed as he did.

"Now, you guys need to get out of here. I don't want anyone knowing I was talking to you. I could be in a lot of trouble, trouble even you people couldn't get me out of."

"Do you want us to wait, escort you back to the facility?" Scully asked.

"No, I want you gone, out of the neighborhood. This is a small town, and people talk. I'll be out of here in five minutes." He led them back to the front door. As Scully walked by him he grabbed her arm. "Can I be prosecuted for knowing about this human testing and not saying anything? I mean, I can't can I, because it's top secret?" Sweat was beading up on his face, and his hands shook as they held her arm tightly, like a man hanging onto a life preserver.

"Someone's probably going to be punished, Gary, but I don't think it will be you." He dropped her arm and she followed Doggett out the door.


	12. Chapter 12

"Well, do you want to come with me and stake out the facility a little longer, see if anything else goes on?" Doggett asked, breaking the silence that had filled the car since they left the house.  

"I think I'm going to have to call it a night, Agent Doggett. I'm exhausted." She sighed and looked out the car window at all the houses as they drove out of the neighborhood. Most were dark, but there was still a light on here and there. One window flickered with the blue light of a television. "It's so much to process. It's certainly been a full day."

"No argument there." He pulled up in front of the motel. "Get a good sleep then." She stepped out and started to close the car door, but Doggett reached out and stopped her, then handed her the case files and his notes. She gathered them awkwardly under her arm and shut the door behind her. Walking up to the motel room door, she noticed that Doggett didn't move the car, and remained there, idling, until she was inside.

Inside the room was as sparse as these rooms usually were. She had seen more than her fair share of cheap hotel rooms in small towns, and this one rated as average. At least it seemed to be clean. The room had a front window that looked out on the parking lot through burlap-like curtains and she glanced out just in time to see Doggett pulling back onto the main road, heading for the highway. A small table and two chairs was in front of the window so she draped her coat over one of the chairs and dropped the folders on the table, removed her weapon from it's holster and left it on the nightstand.

She went to the bathroom. Splashing water on her face, she felt her head was spinning with the details of the cases, the conditions of the victims. Three victims in one day, all horribly mutilated. The first victim, killed nearly a week before the last four victims. Somehow it all would link together. When she came back out into the room she felt warm, and opened the window a few inches, just enough to let in a little fresh air, then changed into her night clothes and crawled into bed, shutting off the lights.

In the darkness she drifted quickly off to sleep.

Back in her darkened, empty apartment, she walked in carefully, found the small table lamp by the window and flipped it on. Its light was weak, and only half illuminated the room. She shrugged off her long coat and let it fall to the floor, walking away from it as if shedding her skin. That was when she saw the figure sitting on the couch. She walked around the couch, looking at him strangely, not believing it was possible for him to be sitting there, as if nothing had happened.

"What's the matter, Scully?" Mulder said with a playful smile. He knew he had surprised her. She came around the other side of the sofa and sat down, keeping a little distance from him.

"You died, Mulder." She said, as if scolding a small child, feeling her eyes filling up even as she said it. How could he just sit there and laugh about it? He was the one who'd left.

"I never died before. Why would you believe it this time?" He smiled again and reached over and took her hand. His hand was warm, strong, and he pulled her over to him. She reluctantly let him, and he pulled her tight against his chest. She laid her ear against him and listened for his heartbeat. It seemed to match hers perfectly.

His hands rubbed over her shoulders as he held her, moving up and down her back, brushing through her hair. She tried to resist, knowing it was all too good to be true, but her baser instincts won out, and she found herself flooded with warmth, overjoyed to the point of tears, delighted in his touch, his solid-ness, his smell. She passed her hands over his chest, over his arms. When she pulled away far enough to look at his face again, he looked away, worried. She followed his gaze.

She was back in the motel bed, cold and alone. Mulder sat at the table, silhouetted against the light of the parking lot coming through the window. His shirtsleeves were rolled up, his collar loosened, as she had seen him a thousand times with his mind wrapped up in a case file. He leaned over the table, reading intently. She watched as he turned a page in the file.

"Come to bed, Mulder," she said quietly, her head still on the pillow. "We can finish that in the morning." Her voice seemed loud in the empty room. He glanced over at her, then back at the report.

"It took him a long time to get from victim one to victim two. The first guy was way out in the country. Your killer's on foot." He turned another page, and she heard the paper rustle as it slipped through his fingers.

"There's something important here. You're almost out of time." He tapped his finger on a page. "It's my fault that you missed it. I've been distracting you."

She sat up to look, and the dream dissolved around her, leaving her alone in the room again. Reality fell on her shoulders like a weight, and she fell back against the pillow, her disappointment audible as an agonized groan. It had been so real, even though she knew it was not. Every time she realized he was gone, it was like he had died all over again, and the permanence was slowly sinking in.

After a few minutes she sat up, turned on the nightstand light and padded barefoot across the thinly carpeted floor, curious. At the table the folders lay open, a printout with a list of names on top. She sat down in the cold chair where Mulder seemed to have been sitting only a moment before. A slight breeze blew the curtain out from the window, threatening to shuffle the papers further, and she reached over and closed it with a bang, as if it were responsible not only for shuffling her papers around, but for her disappointment as well.

She looked at the paper. It listed over a hundred researchers who had been at the facility over the last ten years, sorted by hire and termination dates. Doggett had compiled it at the FBI Office that afternoon, but she hadn't seen anything particularly significant about it, beyond giving them the identity of the other employees, who Doggett had already investigated for priors.

She moved the page and looked at the next page down, which was also askew and hanging out of the folder as if she were meant not to miss it. It was Bill Suitor's file, listing the year he disappeared. Somehow it had gotten placed in the wrong folder, which seemed unlikely because Doggett was careful about things like that. Still, she set the two pages side by side and looked at them, leaning her elbows on the edge of the table and resting her chin on her hands. Maybe Mulder was right. Maybe she had been distracted and missed something important.

As if Mulder himself was looking over her shoulder, she made the intuitive leap and saw the answer. Of all the researchers who had come and gone over the years, only six were there the year Suitor disappeared. The five men who had already been killed and one more, Hugo Reinhold, retired 1999. She flipped through the pile of papers Doggett had accumulated. According to his information, Reinhold still received a government pension, and it was sent to him right there in Heisson, just down the block in fact. If Doggett's animal activists were avenging Bill Suitor's disappearance, this guy would be next on the list. She jumped up, almost knocking the folders off the table, pulled on her clothes, grabbed her coat and holster, and bolted out the door.


	13. Chapter 13

"And he scores, that's two more for Jordan, setting a new career high for single game scoring..."

Doggett shifted in his seat. He had never been on a stakeout where less was happening. He had seen a deer walk across the road a half-an-hour before, and that had been the most activity he'd seen since he arrived. He turned the radio down as an annoying commercial interrupted the basketball game he'd found repeating on an AM sports station.

He rubbed a hand over his eyes and blinked a few times. Sleep was going to catch him by surprise if he wasn't careful. He turned the key in the ignition far enough to put the windows down, hoping the cool night air would keep him awake a little while longer. He leaned against the door, letting the cool air chill him back to wakefulness.

The night was absolutely silent, no crickets, no frogs, nothing. Off in the distance he heard an occasional yip from a coyote, but it was short and the night quickly quieted down again. A twig snapped somewhere. He turned and looked out the window, but the blackness offered him no clues. He settled back into the seat. On the radio he could hear the game playing quietly, just at the edge of audibility.

He heard another twig snap, closer this time, and before he could turn to look a hand snaked in through the window and clamped over his mouth. He tried to fight, but hands were on him dragging him out onto the ground and relieving him of his gun before he could put up any kind of resistance.

"One target acquired." A calm voice said.

In the darkness Doggett could just make out men dressed in black special forces uniforms, wearing body armor, helmets, and night goggles. A voice crackled over someone's radio.

"Confirm the count."

"Repeating, one target."

Doggett found himself flipped onto his face and his hands cuffed tightly behind his back. Another man swiftly dragged him back onto his feet and shoved him forward, leading him to a large black troop transport, which had just driven up from the facility and parked on the road. Other HumVs and a box truck blasted past them down the road, heading into town. The soldiers roughly shoved him into the back of the transport, where he was surrounded by troops, their faces hidden behind goggles. Hands pushed him along until he was at the front of the vehicle, and they turned him around and forced him to sit on the floor.

"Where is your partner, sir?" One of the soldiers was suddenly in his face. The question sounded urgent.

"What? Look, we're federal investigators, you can't treat us like this."

"It's for your own safety, sir. Colonel Hawk told us to take you both into custody until the field maneuver was over. Now where is your partner? She's in danger if she gets in our way."

Doggett considered his options. Detaining him seemed like an extreme measure, but if they were telling the truth, he didn't want Scully to be in danger. His instinct told him to go along with the soldier.

"She's in town, at the motel. She won't be getting in anyone's way." He finally answered. The soldier relayed the information into the radio mounted on his chest.

"We'll try to locate her in time, sir," he heard the soldier say as the vehicle lurched into motion.


	14. Chapter 14

Scully ran down the dark street, into the neighborhood they had just visited an hour before. She quickly found the address for Reinhold and stopped in the road. All the lights were out, but the front door hung wide open. Before she even reached the porch she could see the latch was shattered as if it had been kicked in. She pulled her gun and flashlight out and slowly entered.

"Mr. Reinhold?" She flashed the light around the room. A table lamp just inside the door was broken and laying on the floor. She stepped carefully around it, her eyes wide, looking for any movement. She listened to every creak as her steps took her down the hall to the dining room.

A series of windows filled the opposite wall, letting in the light from the late-rising moon. The table had been swept away, and laid half-upside down against the far wall. In the center of the room a man hunched over, working furiously on something out of her line of sight. She focussed her light and gun on him. "Freeze, FBI! Turn around slowly!"

The man stood up slowly, awkwardly, holding a hunting knife loosely in one hand. Fluid drained down the length of it, falling in big drops to the polished wood floor where they landed with a distinct dripping sound in the darkness. As his legs straightened out she heard the whir of servos and gears. She could see the body of an old man on the floor behind him, lying motionless in a dark pool, his head almost unrecognizable through the blood. As the assailant turned around, she saw a bloody hunk of flesh in his other hand. Her stomach churned, but she didn't loosen her grip on the gun. She held it rock-steady.

"It's over. Drop the weapon." She flashed the light over him quickly. She could barely make out patches of red hair on his mangy head. His body seemed to be fighting itself. His eyes were two different colors, different sizes even, and his ears were similarly mismatched, jutting out at odd angles. His nose had been flattened and patched back on. His arms bulged with unnatural muscles, and his hands were huge and angular, looking more like skin stretched over armatures than hands. His legs twitched and bulged under him. Still, through it all, she could see the truth.

"Bill Suitor?" She asked, incredulous.

"I was." His voice crackled and groaned coming out of him. "Until THEY got a hold of me." He tossed the knife to the floor, where it skittered across the hardwood, but held onto the lump of flesh. He looked at it laying limply in his hand which was covered in gore. "I just want to take back what is mine."

"What do you mean?" She struggled to keep her voice steady.

"They did this to me. I came to try and stop them from experimenting on animals. It was like Colonel Hawk's little joke. Instead they began testing on me." He pointed to his face, where the skin was red and tearing away from electrical implants which jutted out like they were trying to escape. "I've had so many sets of eyes, artificial skin patches, and replacement muscles and bones, I don't know what's me anymore." He held up the bloody gob of tissue and Scully realized with horror that it was an ear. "I just want normal parts again." He wobbled on his artificial legs, every motion causing a mechanical part to whir somewhere under his skin, but somehow he stayed upright. She almost lowered her gun, not sure what to do next, then pushed her feelings aside and held the gun steady, trained on the monstrosity before her.

"My God, what have they done to you?" She asked.

"They kept me awake under local anesthetics for hours, performing all kinds of horrible experiments. They replaced my eyes, my ears, my skin in patches over the years." He swung his arm back and forth, flexing it. "They kept improving the product, so they would peel off more skin and try again. They always had to keep me awake during the procedure so they could get the nerves hooked up right. When I thought I might die from the pain, they replaced my heart with a mechanical one, so even that release was taken from me. Between operations I was kept in a holding cell, like an animal. I didn't see the sun for almost six years."

"Then one of my torturers came to me, the bone-doctor, and offered to help me escape. He snuck me out late one night and took me to his home in the hills. The idiot." He shook his head and a crackling gurgle escaped his lips, something like a laugh. "He didn't realize I needed a lot of maintenance, he wasn't involved in all the follow-up work to keep their little experiment, me, going. Without the constant drugs to keep me from feeling all these implants, and to keep my body from rejecting them, the pain became unbearable. I couldn't take it. I don't even know what happened the first time, I just woke up with my hands covered in blood, his body at my feet."

"Then I got the idea." He held up the ear again and looked at it thoughtfully. "I thought if I could take back all the parts they took from me, maybe I could be whole again. So I took bone-doctor's bones, and walked back into town. Then, I started looking for the other men who had done this to me. I crept around at night, like Jack the Ripper, finding my torturers and exacting my revenge. I had to work fast. I don't have much time before these transplants start failing."

Outside, Scully heard large vehicles drive up fast and squeal to a stop, but she didn't dare take her eyes off Suitor to see who it was. She saw his eyes light up with terror, and he turned to the windows behind him, grabbing at the sill, trying to escape. "No, stay where you are," she ordered.

"I'm not going back," Suitor disobeyed her, breaking the glass on one window, and she risked a quick glance over her shoulder, hesitant to shoot. She wasn't sure a single bullet would stop him.

Soldiers in black body armor came pouring into the house, rifles ready. She saw them taking aim, crouching into position. "No, wait," she shouted, wanting to get out of the line of fire, but to no avail. She dropped to the floor just as a hail of silenced gunfire sliced through the air above her head. Her flashlight rolled out of reach, and in the darkness she could just make out Suitor staggering under the pummel of bullets hitting him. Sparks flew from his body with each strike. Around him plaster disintegrated off the walls, the hanging lamps exploded, and the glass windows shattered. She protected her head with her arms, and peered out at the destruction around her. Finally he fell, landing over Reinhold's corpse with a dull thud. The whirring continued for a moment, his limbs twitching, then all was still.

As quickly as the firing began, it stopped. Soldiers raced past her as if she wasn't even there, grabbing Suitor's body and dragging it outside. She sat up, trying not to grind any broken glass into her hands as he pushed herself to her feet. Looking around, she found her flashlight, then quickly located her gun, holstered it, and walked out the front door, still stunned.

Outside there were several troop transports. She walked down to the sidewalk, her legs shaking under her, and sat on the low brick wall which enclosed the front yard. From her vantage point she could see Suitor and Reinhold's bodies as they were loaded into the back of an enclosed box-truck, which was then sealed with a padlock. The soldier in charge pounded on the side of the truck, and the driver pulled away. Other soldiers hurried back into the house. She could hear more glass breaking inside.

"Agent Scully, are you ok?" Doggett came running up to her, rubbing his wrist with one hand. She could see the cuff marks, and thought she knew what had happened to him without having to ask. He looked back up at the house. "Where the hell were you?"

"Inside." She answered, still shaken, but more disappointed than anything else. Disappointed over all the wasted lives in this case. There were seven corpses now, all people who shouldn't have been dead. There was no reason for any of it to have gone down this way.

"Are you ok?" He squinted at her, concerned. She nodded. "They said it was some kind of field maneuver."

"Not maneuvers," she said, "They're here to clean up their own mess."

"So where's our killer?" He looked towards the house where the cleanup crew was in full swing. "Who was it?" He asked. She shook her head.

"There's no one here to prosecute, Agent Doggett." She stood up, shards of broken glass rained down from her coat and made a tinkling sound on the concrete around her feet. "There's nothing here but victims."


End file.
